Petty Officer 2nd Class Juan M. Rubio
I have spent over an hour on-line, trying to find information about this American hero. Nothing on any DoD site. Only the Star Telegram news story and it got picked up by PJM. This is a very disappointing yet all too common scenario. No news.
The Navy is awarding the Silver Star to only the third corpsman in the past four years. The recipient is a San Angelo native who, while injured and bleeding, treated and dragged three wounded Marines out of a fierce firefight in Iraq.
The medal will be pinned to the uniform of Petty Officer 2nd Class Juan M. Rubio, 32, during a ceremony later this month in Corpus Christi, where he now works in the much-quieter confines of the base’s family clinic.
“I couldn’t have done the things I did without knowing that the Marines had my back, giving me security,†Rubio said in a phone interview. “I owe everything to those guys.â€
The Silver Star is the nation’s third-highest medal for valor in combat.
During his seven years in the military, Rubio has treated victims of a terrorist attack in this country and victims of a war halfway around the world.
Working at the naval hospital in Bethesda, Md., he aided those injured in the 9-11 Pentagon attack. He then served on the USS Comfort hospital ship, which was sent to New York after the World Trade Center attacks.
He then volunteered to become a corpsman with the Marines, who don’t have medics of their own.
Rubio served with the 1st Battalion, 2nd Marines during the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Afterward, he became the corpsman for 4th Platoon, Small Craft Company, which performed reconnaissance work for the 1st Marine Division. He returned to Iraq in 2004.
On Jan. 1, 2005, Rubio’s platoon was ambushed on the Euphrates River. The Marines left their boats and pursued the attackers, only to have an explosive set off nearby.
Rubio and three Marines were wounded. Despite having shrapnel wounds in his legs and arms, Rubio belly-crawled to the injured Marines and treated their injuries. He then dragged each of them across open terrain, under fire, to safety behind a wall.
He showed the uninjured Marines how to care for the wounded troops and then began directing covering fire while he helped take the wounded back to the boats.
“Your actions saved lives and you have set an example for future corpsmen and Marines to emulate,” wrote Maj. Gen. R.F. Natonski, who wrote a letter endorsing the medal. “Your service is coveted by each and every Marine in the 1st Marine Division.”
One Marine died that day, Lance Cpl. Brian Parrello. Rubio believes Parrello saved his life.
“He took a big chunk of artillery,” Rubio said. “He absorbed 90 percent of the explosion for me. I owe my life to him.”
The Jan. 1 ambush that grounded the boats was well planned, 4th Platoon Marines said. It began when a routine patrol was fired upon from an area of shoreline just outside Hadithah city. The crews fired back, then returned to base to pick up more Marines.
“This time they stayed and waited for the ground element. They stayed and waited for us to come back,†Vasey said. When the ground teams landed, an explosion — nobody is sure whether it was an improvised bomb or a mortar — hit them almost immediately. That was followed by small arms and machine gun fire.
One Marine, a 19-year-old coxswain, was killed. Several others were severely injured, including an engineer who lost part of his right arm.
Vasey and Czerwinski estimate that the first ambush was carried out by fewer than five attackers. When the Marines returned, some 15-20 insurgents laid in wait. The firefight lasted around 20 minutes, they said.
semper fi!